When a piece of property or object changes custody from one entity to another, it is important to track that the current owner or care taker of the object has changed. It is also important to track the transfer of ownership and/or custodianship of the object and to further document that the transfer was authorized by both parties.
The above-mentioned issues related to chain of custody are specifically important with respect to highly-valuable and/or rare objects. Failure to accurately track ownership and/or custodianship of highly-valuable and/or rare objects can lead to the creation of black or gray markets, which could negatively impact the overall value of such objects.